Assessment of a community rehabilitation programme in convicted male intimate-partner violence offenders

Résumé 0

"In Spain, the mandatory community rehabilitation of convicted male intimate-partner violence offenders opens new avenues for the treatment of these offenders. To determine the effectiveness of an experimental cognitive-behavioral treatment programme with content adjusted to target the specific cognitive limitations or deficits of each individual intimate-partner violence offender, a field study was designed to assess the rehabilitation effects on the underlying internal mechanisms that foster offending. 130 convicted intimate-partner violence offenders underwent pre- and postintervention assessment of the internal underlying mechanisms that spur offending. The pre-rehabilitation results showed that convicted intimate-partner violence offenders exhibited, in comparison with the normative population, hostility (i.e., aggression, anger, fury, irritability, rage, resentment), persecutory ideas (i.e., suspicious, fear of losing autonomy, need of control, difficulties in expressing their hostility), and depressive symptoms. The rehabilitation effects were significant, positive and with a moderate effect size for depressive symptoms, large for hostility, and moderate for persecutory ideas. In conclusion, the results substantiate the effectiveness of this rehabilitation program for the treatment of violent thinking."